SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs: Mobile Recon Updated Hands-on

SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs: Mobile Recon, a collaborative effort between SCEA, Jamdat Mobile, and developer Ironmonkey Studios, is almost ready for its mid-October release--hopefully around SOCOM 3's October 11 street date. Because that's still a way off, Jamdat delivered a final version of the game to us for some more hands-on time. After playing a little more into this stylish tactical shooter, we're considering it time well spent.

In SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs: Mobile Recon, you control an advance team of two SEALs running preliminary recon for a larger mission in Morocco (it just so happens that mission takes place in SOCOM 3). A nasty insurgency is plotting the government's overthrow, and it's up to your smarts and gunplay to repel the tide. The leader of the mission is Wraith, who's handy with his sniper rifle and a knife, and his subordinate is Bronco, who prefers blowing stuff up with grenades and C4.

It's the perfect tandem of quiet and loud, and you'll need both approaches to do well in Mobile Recon. You're always controlling Wraith, but you can give orders to Bronco via a menu accessed with the right soft key. These orders include move, attack, open doors, use a grenade, and follow. Wraith, on the other hand, can go into a menu and choose sniper mode, which switches the screen to targeting mode. In this mode, the background grays out a little and a reticle appears, hovering over your line of sight; you can use one of your limited number of sniper bullets to assassinate a baddie from a distance, preferably with a headshot. Both sniper bullets and grenades can be replenished with pickups on each of the game's eight levels. Wraith can also knife terrorists from the shadows, if he gets close enough without their noticing.

The objectives don't deviate far from those found in similar games, like Gameloft's Rainbow Six: Lockdown--you've got your informant finding, your hostage rescues, your snatch operations, and even a level where you provide fire support from the back of a truck. Nevertheless, the core gameplay is a lot of fun, even if the levels are pretty linear. You'll have to learn to run from shadow to shadow to evade guards, position Bronco in the right spots to provide covering fire, and, on the later levels, conserve your sniper bullets. The game rates your performance on each level using a five-star scale, so there's reason to polish your skills to a fine sheen.

We appreciate Mobile Recon's many little design touches--stuff that isn't strictly necessary for gameplay but that makes everything feel a lot smoother. For instance, the cursor that you use to click around the screen is probably the best we've ever encountered. It feels almost like you're using a PC mouse, and it has lots of contextual animation to tell you what you're focusing on at any given time. The animation is also great. The backgrounds are alive with birds pecking on the dirt roads and laundry flapping in the breeze, and when Wraith knifes an enemy, you can see him brandish the blade for a moment before he plunges it in. Jamdat has also put in a fair amount of digitized voice, mostly for Bronco's acknowledgement of your orders.

We enjoyed our preview time with Wraith and Bronco, and we're looking forward to conducting a full review of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs: Mobile Recon in early October. Check back then to see how the game stacks up against the competition.